- The most international buying searches for U.S. homes came from Canada.
- New York City is the most sought after metro for every country.
- Middle Eastern countries searched more in the middle of the country, in cities like Detroit and Houston.
If you’re searching for foreign buyers interested in purchasing a home in Austin, it might be helpful to know that 9.3 percent of home searches from Zimbabwe were focused in the 512 area code.
According to Trulia’s International House Hunters 2016 Report, which showed where the most home searches in America were coming from all over the world, the most foregin searches for U.S. homes came from Canada. To get this data, Trulia used the total searches from each country and divided it by the number of searches in America for each country.
Trulia’s interactive map shows the top searches for certain countries.
Buyers from Canada remain the most interested of any country in the world. Of all searches up north made until May 1, 13.8 percent were focused in the United States. That is a 3 percent drop from last year.
Countries looking at cities where you least expect it
New York City (surprise, surprise) is the no. 1 searched for metro from all the countries in the world. But then things get interesting.
Los Angeles, Long Beach and Glendale were lumped together to make up the no. 2 most popular location. This region of California was popular in nearly every European country in the data set, with Australia thinking highly of it, as well.
Italy, France and Venezeula searched for homes in Miami more than any other metro in America. Both Italy and France shared the same top three searches, following Miami with L.A. and San Francisco. In Argentina, one out every five searches was for a home in Miami, which was the third most popular metro searched for from around the world.
The most popular city searched for in Iraq is Houston, the sixth most searched metro in the country among international searches. Pakistan and Palestinian territories also searched for Houston more than any other U.S. metro. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines also looked for homes in Houston at a rate of 1 out of every 15 searches.
And although St. Vincent and the Grenadines favor Austin, Texas, Chicago was the south caribbean nation’s no. 2 choice for home searches.
Baltimore was the no. 15 most searched for metro with no heavy concentration from any country in particular.
Noteworthy mentions across the country
Austin, a city populated by more than 885,000 people, is the most popular searched city in Zimbabwe. Almost 10 percent of searches came from the country, with a notable 3.5 percent of Kenyan searches digging through the same city.
Although not viewed as a hot destination domestically, Detroit remains very popular for immigrants coming out of the Middle East. Approximately 42 percent of Yemen’s searches were for Detroit and the surrounding metros. Since the early 2000s, a strong concentration of Muslims have relocated to the area, with one town, Hamtramck, garnering national attention for having the first ever Muslim-majority council.
Looks like asking, “Where are you from?” just got a little more important.
